A/N: Seth and Summer. It is set after summer and Seth's "trip", so to say. It starts off with them lying down together on the back seat of his car and follows them till the end of the day. It's the first day of school. I quite like this story. I was trying to imagine all the different ways they would react to each other when Seth returns. There's a lot of ones about Summer and Seth having big make-up and break-up scenes. But I think their relationship is based on a lot of unspoken words, so to say. I think they can read each other pretty well. So, this is my little thing…
Oh, BTW, look up the lyrics to the Vines song mentioned later on, they're actually kind of relevant to Seth and Summer I think, in terms of Seth's trip. Also sorry for the slightest of Ryrissa bashing. I just can't stand Marissa.
Sorry for the layout, QuickEdit won't let me have more than one enter space in between, it really really sucks.
Also, this was written before my story "Pride". It's a little one-off, and it could also be seen as Part Two to my other story "Life Sentence" in a way. That's what I thought of it, anyways.
Dedicated to Death Cab, my muse and the title and the first line of the story.
We looked Like Giants
When every Thursday, I'd brave those mountain passes and you'd skip your early classes..
"Meaningless memories are the important ones."
"Meaningless ones?"
"You know…sitting on the couch watching Sister Act Two with my mother. Stupid stuff like that."
She felt him nod underneath her.
"You like that movie?"
"My mother did. See Summer, if you just work, you could have a beautiful voice, just like that. She used to say that all the time."
"She wanted you to be a singer?"
"Mmm, yeah. Singing lessons for three years. But I did ballet lessons and tennis lessons, and even etiquette classes for kids too. She wanted me to be a lot of things."
The stuffiness of his car appealed to her. She wrapped her arms around him tighter.
"How were you as a ballet dancer?"
She heard the laughter in his voice.
"Fantastic. But I don't have the body. I mean, I'm no Marissa."
She buried her face into his chest.
"Thank god. Then you wouldn't be Summer."
Hours passing was just time passing and time was the biggest façade in history. Hours lying down in the back seat of Seth's car, his mother's car but still kind of his, was just time, time when they should have been in class.
The first day of being a senior was Summer wandering around the hallway before first class, knowing she would run into Seth after she had just broken up with him last week.
"So you're back."
"Yep."
"How was your trip?"
This was his welcome home present. Acid-filled voices and crying eyes. It sounded like a song, he thought.
"It has to be over Seth. I didn't deserve that."
He knew he deserved this.
Hallways full of Marissas and Lukes and no Seths and for some reason it disgusted her and she found herself breathing into the car park, standing among Bentleys and Mercs.
She saw his car, way down the end and she wandered over, force of habit. He was there, lying down across the back seats.
She opened the door and cuddled up with him, lying across the seats, just like him.
"Old habits are hard to break," she mumbled into his chest.
"I don't want you to break this one," he mumbled back.
First class came and went. Then went second, then recess and they were now well into third.
It was just the leather of the seats, the tightness of the air, sticky skin and limbs. Sounds of breathes and Death Cab on the stereo. Meaningless moments which turn into meaningless memories are the most important ones.
Spending her first day as a senior lying down in a car in the school car park was never something planned. Lying on top of Seth and fiddling with his shirt was never something planned either.
"Your mother finally give you this car?"
"Well, yeah. I think she felt sorry for me. No girl, no friend, no car. She could fix one thing."
"You get what you deserve Seth."
But she was here with him and not in class. So maybe she wasn't as angry as she thought. And maybe he didn't deserve everything he got.
"You're like my drug of choice Seth. You're so bad for me."
"I'm a rebel."
She felt him laugh underneath her. He was a rebel, he was B-A-D, he was, he was, he was…
Being called B-A-D reminded him that he really wasn't and that Ryan was still gone.
"Did you miss me on your little trip?"
"Like a junkie misses heroin."
She laughed a little. "So maybe I'm your drug of choice too. I'm so bad for you."
"You're like medicinal marijuana. You're so illegal but I can't live with the pain. You numb the pain."
She laughed again but cried a little too.
Lunch had begun. A morning wasted away in a car, The Shins being hummed in her ears, kisses on his lips, knowing that summer had been and gone but she wasn't going to give him up.
She opened the door and slide into fresh air and he followed, his rumpled hair matted down with the slightest of sweat.
She sat at a table with the hottest of the Newport seniors, centered with Marissa.
He sat somewhere, somewhere visible from the corner of her eye.
English was spent huddled with Marissa and words of Macbeth washing over her head.
"I think I'm back with Seth."
"After the way he just left you? Let me just say that if Ryan ever comes back, he's so not getting back with me."
"Weren't we just talking about me? Why are we always talking about you?"
"Sum!"
English was just that. Hanging heads and scratching her name into the desk. Summer, 2004. Ignoring Marissa's look. Ignoring Marissa. Just ignoring. Ignoring the teacher talk about Macbeth. Just ignoring.
"Summer!" Marissa hissed.
"You know you are so going to get back with Ryan. Don't pretend."
"Okay! But why are you so angry? It's just Seth."
Marissa's eyes were distracting. They didn't seem to fit her face. She wanted to reach over and touch them, possibly hit them.
"What does that mean?"
"I mean, I just…it's not that serious, you know. It's not like how me and…"
Like how her and Ryan were. The poster image of the perfect couple.
Sitting at his island, his own personal island.
"Drink?"
She nodded.
She liked his kitchen. She liked his house. It was a home. She had never really lived in a home.
Somewhere in his house, music was playing and somewhere in his house, that music was Ryan Adams' Wonderwall.
One of the more meaningful memories that she had.
"I like this song," she whispered.
He smiled a small, almost sad smile and went over and hugged her, just the tiniest of bits.
"Are we serious?" she echoed Marissa.
They were serious. They weren't attached at the hip and they didn't have the dramas, so to say. They weren't Ryrissa. They had screaming fights, because they were both loud, but they didn't have many. They just joked and liked sex and liked to laugh and liked to insult each other. They were just them.
They weren't serious but they so were. They were just them.
He kissed her.
"I'm glad you didn't stay broken up with me for long."
"Can I ever get a promise that you won't just take off without me again?"
Marissa had an obvious abandonment issue now that Ryan had left. "My dad left me and so did Ryan and you kind of have too Sum!" Marissa had a lot of issues. Summer didn't have many or she did, but they were private and intensely secret. She had an abandonment issue her whole life. She hated having "issues". She felt like a Kurt Cobain teenager cliché of the early nineties.
He knew it too. They weren't Ryrissa. And they weren't Joey and Dawson either. They didn't sit around discussing their "issues". But he still knew.
"I was stupid to leave."
"I thought emo people couldn't like The Strokes."
"I love The Strokes," he laughed insanely. "I don't know why! I can't explain it! But they get to me! Ever since I saw the front cover of their first album. It was sooooooo Spinal Tap. That just did it for me."
She giggled, just as insanely as he was laughing. "I hate Drew Barrymore because she did my New Years resolution for me. It was my goal to marry a hot drummer. And now she's doing it! What a bitch."
"You think drummers are hot?"
"So hot. Dave Grohl, hello?" He fell into her, laughing and rolling around on the sand.
"I can't believe that's the type of guy you go for. I mean, you're Summer. Don't you like people like Luke?"
"Then why am I with you?"
They laughed louder.
"And The Vines," he whispered softly.
"What about The Vines?" She snuggled closer to him. It was only nine-thirty at night and they were all over each other on the beach with a million people around them. Newport was never private. There were always people everywhere. Still, what she classified as "all over each other" was still tame. They were only lying down next to each other, their arms tight around each other's waist. Hardly a Ryrissa public make-out session.
"I secretly like them too."
She giggled. She didn't know much about emo fans but she was pretty sure Seth was crossing over to the dark side.
"Not all of their songs. But I like this song of theirs called Homesick. It does it to me every time."
"Listen to it a lot on your little trip?"
Your little trip. That was all she ever called it. But she brought it up a lot. And the words your little trip had a lot of subtle overtones. He could tell she was hurt just a bit too much sometimes. Acid-filled voices and crying eyes. Summer's song. Acid-filled voices.
"I did, actually."
Acid-filled voices.
They hadn't worked out everything they were pretending didn't exist.
Sheets were sheets and satin was satin and purple was just purple. But purple satin sheets with Seth in between them was something completely different.
"You look the prettiest at one-thirty in the morning."
"You always say that Cohen."
Sneaking around her dad's back was always something he enjoyed. Having Seth spend the night in her bed was always something she loved. But she didn't love him. Because she couldn't love an abandoner, her father always told her that. You can't love your mother Summer, because she left YOU. That's why you'll always love me. Because her mother didn't leave her father or Newport, she left her. And Summer's dad always promised he would never leave her. And physically he hadn't. But he kind of had.
Seth started to get up.
"Where are you going?"
"I have to go."
People always leave. She laughed a little at her melodramatic mind.
"If my mother wakes up and finds my bed empty, she'll die of a heart-attack. You know it."
She knew it. That was their habit. Have dinner, roll around on the beach together, go to her house and make good use of her purple satin sheets. He would leave around two a.m. It was their habit before his little trip and it seemed although time had passed, it hadn't changed.
"Can I come with you?"
"Your dad will freak out."
"He's in New York."
"Then your step-mother will."
"I don't think she's here."
"Well, my mother would freak out. She likes to imagine that she's the only person in the whole world that has sex."
"We don't have to do anything. Can I just come home with you?"
She called it home. Because she didn't live in a home but she knew Seth did.
He was quiet for a long time.
He knew that they were ignoring a lot of "issues". He knew he had cut Summer deep. Acid-filled voices and crying eyes. And somewhere, she knew she had cut him deep too. Acid-filled voices. He knew he was an old habit that was hard to break. And she knew she didn't want to break it. They missed each other. Like a junkie misses heroin. She was medicinal marijuana. Sometimes they reminded each other that maybe they were just pretending that everything was alright. Acid-filled voices. And they weren't serious. But they also kind of were. They weren't Ryrissa. They were just them.
And they both knew that. And he knew her.
"You can come. I like the idea of waking up to you."
He knew just what she needed.
They were just them.